“So, Parnell lived here with you?”
“He did most of the time. He’d disappear every now and again, but as I ain’t the luckiest woman on the planet, he’d always find his way back here.”
“When’s the last time you saw him?”
“Few days back. A week maybe. Can’t remember exactly.”
Dani looked for a clean place to sit and finally settled on one of the couch’s arms. “You know anything about the people he hung out with? His associates?”
Wanda let loose a smoker’s laugh. “Associates? That ain’t no way to describe the worthless fuckers Parnell hung out with. Most of the folks he knew are here now. Don’t none of them like him. The only ones that ain’t here are his daddy’s people and…” She laughed again. “Associates.”
“Did Parnell ever say anything about a Patricia McElhenney?”
Wanda considered the name. “Never heard of her.”
“She worked for the ATF.”
Wanda raised an eyebrow. “The feds?”
“Right. An agent.”
Wanda took a deep drag from her cigarette. “Parnell wouldn’t come nowhere nears a fed. You can count on that. His daddy got it into his head about how the government is trying to take our rights away and take our guns and whatnot. Parnell’d just as soon shoot an agent with the ATF than anything.”
Dani didn’t think before asking, “You think he’d really do a thing like that?”
“A thing like what?”
“Shoot an ATF agent?”
Wanda thought long and hard before saying, “I doubt it. That’d take a good bit of initiative that Parnell didn’t have access to.”
Friar saw a paw shoot out from underneath the couch and tear a frayed piece of carpet. “That cat you don’t own is making an appearance.”
Wanda looked where he was pointing and let her smoker’s laugh blast out. “What the hell? Got no idea where that damn thing come from.”
“Wanda,” Dani said, “Parnell’s daddy, you say he’s anti-government.”
Wanda nodded. “Man’s anti-everything. He’s anti-me for damn sure. He did a stretch in the state pen because of me.”
“Because of you?” Friar asked.
Wanda hesitated before saying, “Let’s just say he took liberties with me. If he hadn’t beat me near dead after, he’da got away with it.”
“Oh,” Friar said, looking down at the carpet to avoid eye contact with the woman.
“You think Parnell’s daddy would have it in him to shoot an ATF agent?” Dani asked.
“Oh, hell yeah, he would. That fucker’s mean on top of stupid.”
Dani’s stomach tied into knots. She was suddenly terrified that she had stumbled onto a situation that was too big for her and the rest of the Baptist Flats Sheriff’s Department. Again. She was about to ask another question when those words her uncle didn’t say to her earlier in the day haunted her. Her aunt was dead because of Dani’s meddling. There was no way she could deny it. She wanted to know Parnell’s daddy’s name, but at the same time, she didn’t.
Friar unexpectedly made a suggestion as Dani eased back on her inquiry. “You mind if we check Parnell’s room?”
“Check it? For what?” Wanda asked.
Friar shrugged. “No reason. We’re just here, and we got this ATF business to look into. I reckon it’s just something we oughta do.”
Wanda sucked on her cigarette and swallowed the smoke. “You ain’t gonna hold me to any illegals are you? Parnell was a grown man, and I ain’t sure what all he’s got back in that room of his.”
Friar deferred to Dani. Deputy Savage wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to look in Parnell’s room. Her uncle had her gun-shy, but in a daze, she eventually shook her head and said, “You won’t be held accountable for what we find.”
Wanda shrugged. “Look all you want, then. I got no objections.” She put her finger and thumb to the back of her tongue and screeched out a near deafening whistle.
Wendell appeared in the entrance to the living room shortly after and stood, repeatedly shifting his weight from right to left.
“Take the deputies back yonder to Brother Parnell’s room.”
“Two po-lease,” Wendell responded.
“Right. The both of them. You make sure they don’t wander off nowheres else, hear me?”
“Two po-lease. Brother Parnell. Fat Friar.”
“Well, goddamn,” Friar said, throwing up his arms. “That last bit didn’t need to be added in there.”
Wendell snickered as he turned down the hallway to Parnell’s room. Friar followed him, but Dani hesitated. She didn’t even attempt to stand until her fellow deputy stepped out of sight.
“Something weighing on you, Deputy?” Wanda asked.
Dani was startled by the sound of the woman’s voice. “You ever make a decision that you don’t know was the right thing, even long after and good things had come from it?”
Wanda shook her head and reached into her shirt pocket for her pack of cigarettes. “Does it look like anything good ever come from any decision I ever made, Deputy? I mean, besides that TV.”
Dani didn’t bother responding. There was no use lying to the woman. She stepped down the hallway and immediately felt closed in by the wood-paneled walls. The dingy carpet grew dingier, and the smell shifted from cat piss to body odor. Piles of clothes covered the floor of every room she passed.
“Fat Friar,” Wendell said, appearing in a doorway at the end of the hall.
Dani nodded and pushed past him to enter Parnell’s room.
“Wendell, Ima break you in half you keep calling me Fat Friar.”
Wendell giggled.
Dani felt a tug of regret for agreeing to search Parnell’s room, mostly because it was the filthiest room in the house. On top of the piles of unwashed clothes there were partially eaten bits of food here and there. A good bit of it was covered in green mold and/or insects of various species.
She decided touching anything would do her more harm than good, so she eyeballed her investigation, kicking things about with her boot to get at the root of unseemly loads of muck.
Friar immediately complained about having to file through the shallow and rather smelly closet. Her eyes on his fat ass sticking out past the accordion doorway, she continued tussling items around on the floor with her foot. Had she not sneezed and drawn her head down in the process, she would have missed a neon blue college-ruled spiral notebook. She spotted the word “Dairy” written in gold marker ink. Dani assumed it was supposed to read, “Diary.”
She picked it up and opened it to the first page. On it was written, Privaet! Dont reed my fucken dairy, fuckhaeds! If I cetch you, I well fucken shot you. Dani hurriedly flipped to the next page. It was a drawing produced by somebody with little skill depicting a big-breasted woman holding a long stick. The next page was another poorly executed drawing of a naked woman. The next few pages produced similar results.
Friar, having found nothing of interest in the closet, turned to her. “You find something?”
She held up the notebook. “Parnell’s diary.”
Friar approached her. “Anything interesting?”
“Other than his spelling and lack of artistic talent, no.” She flipped to another page and let out an involuntary “huh” when she saw the image.
“What?” Friar asked.
She held out the notebook to show him the drawing. It was an assault rifle sitting horizontal on the page with the letter G above it and the letter R below it. The Confederate flag was perched on the barrel of the gun.
“What about it?”
Dani shrugged. “It looks familiar.”
“I ain’t never seen it.”
She flipped through the rest of the notebook and the same image appeared a few more times along with the rest of his unfortunate artwork.
“Anything else?”
“Not much. For a diary, it ain’t big on words.”
“Parnell didn’t seem like the wordy type,” F
riar said. “We gotta go through the rest of this stuff?”
Dani shook her head. “I don’t.”
“Wha’cha mean, you don’t?”
“Wasn’t my idea,” she said with a smile. “I found my item of interest. You keep on the hunt until you come across yours.”
Wendell giggled again and mumbled, “Fat Friar.”
Dani closed the notebook and tucked it under her arm. “Ima clear out from this stink. You take your time.”
She exited the room and headed down the hallway. Before stepping outside, she showed Wanda the notebook. “You recognize this?”
Wanda took it from her and flipped through the pages. “Nah. Recognize the shitty manner of drawing, but I ain’t never seen this here specifically.”
Dani leaned over her and flipped the pages until she found the assault rifle. “You ever see this before?”
Wanda didn’t respond immediately. She shifted her gaze to Dani and then back to the drawing. Dani thought she saw the woman’s eyes twitch just the slightest. “I ain’t never laid eyes on it. You about done?”
Dani didn’t back away. “You sure you ain’t seen it before?”
“What did I say?” Wanda said, bringing her cigarette to her mouth with a visibly shaky hand.
Dani didn’t need to press her. She knew the woman was lying, and she wouldn’t move off the lie. “We’re done, for the most part. You mind if I take this?” she asked, referring to the notebook.
“What for?”
Dani shrugged. “Mostly so I won’t have to come back for it with a warrant.”
“Warrant?”
“Yes, ma’am. I do that, and they’re bound to make me search the whole entire house.”
Wanda took a deep drag from her cigarette. “Take it. What do I care? Don’t change the fact that I don’t know nothing about the drawing.”
Dani tucked the notebook under her arm and headed for the door.
Wanda called after her. “Ain’t you taking the fat deputy with you?”
Dani was about to throw Friar a bone and admonish Wanda for calling her fellow deputy fat, when he appeared around the corner carrying a sheet-white complexion and a framed picture in his hand.
“Um,” he said with a stammer, “I think I found something.”
Dani looked at him cockeyed.
He handed her the picture. It was an image of Parnell and a man, both dressed in ghillie suits with their faces painted black and forest green.
“What about it?” Dani asked.
“That’s Parnell and his daddy.”
Dani tried to see through the painted face for features she recognized, but she drew a blank. “You know him?”
Friar shook his head. “Nah, but Wendell seen the picture and he blurted out a name that struck a chord.”
Dani waited for him to continue, but Friar hesitated. Finally she asked, “You gonna tell me or make me guess?”
Before Friar could answer, Wendell stepped out of the shadows and shouted, “Vernon.” He slurped back a rush of saliva and added, “Vernon Pike.”
Chapter 6
The steeple, poorly constructed, hitched to the left if you stared at the church from the ass-end. Pastor Tawny would joke often that conservatives entered the church through the front door, while liberals came in through the back. It was a joke that made no sense because he had no liberal parishioners.
The faded yellow exterior of the church had long been warped from years of neglect and frequent precipitation. When the church was first nailed together, the good pastor made the decision to forgo weatherproofing of any kind. As a result, the builder came in under budget, and Tawny had had money enough to take that trip to Las Vegas he’d always wanted to take.
A year into the church’s existence, Pastor Tawny cursed the contractor from the pulpit for his shoddy work and started a collection to correct his unholy mistakes. Henceforth, money was donated by the congregation for fifteen years without a single correction being made to the building, but there were a few strippers in Sin City that were grateful for the collection. The Lord really does work in mysterious ways.
Pastor Tawny, a man with more girth than faith, a man with more hair on his brow than on his head, a man with more hemorrhoids than compassion, served God with all the sincerity of a salesman a close away from quota on the last day of the month. His smile was tacked on his face like a picture hung on a wall to cover an ugly, gaping hole. There wasn’t much to the man except for a want for more.
It would have been easier to count grains of sand in the desert than to count the dark paths Pastor Tawny followed, but it was not that difficult to identify his darkest. That would have been his position as spiritual counsel for the Gray Rise militia, and he was their spiritual counsel just out of a matter of relations. His fourth wife was a second cousin to the group’s leader, Harley Pike. And while the good pastor had moved on to his seventh bride, he had moved up the ladder of the militia and was ensconced in his position as Harley’s right hand on all things godly, despite the fact that he was unaware of most things godly.
Up until a year prior, Harley had built his militia under the watchful eye of his sister Bonnie. She’d kept him on a short leash and let him keep the group as a hobby. They’d train in a secret compound in the woods and talk about the shit storm that was the country, and they’d work themselves up into a drunken frenzy, vowing to take up arms and end the tyrannical government, only to pass out before they got up off of their fat asses. The next mornings would be spent tending to hangovers and excuses for not taking action.
With Bonnie gone, Harley’s hobby was now an obsession. From the moment he felt the restraints removed, he had set out to move the Gray Rise from talkers to soldiers. He had plans, plans that would bring America to its knees so he could build it up and make it great again.
Tawny’s church was an important part of this strategy. A good soldier fights for his country. A great soldier fights like hell for God and country. Harley could set their hearts to beat for the country he wanted, but he needed Tawny to give them God’s blessing to be ruthlessly committed to the cause. Nothing motivates a man to shed blood like a God that assures you you’ll be forgiven for doing so. All harm. No foul.
A group of twelve men, beaten and exhausted, dressed in clothes that were tattered and covered in sweat, blood, and dirt, marched into Tawny’s church with a sliver of the moon blinking through a group of fast-moving clouds overhead. The men had completed their training. They were the third group of similar size to do so since Harley’s militia efforts had been reinvigorated.
Three men from Harley’s command ranks, wearing gray uniforms that would have matched the Pentagon’s best dressed, stood at the altar barking out simultaneous and purposely opposing commands. The newly trained soldiers were nearly mad from the two weeks of intensive training, and they bounced about the aisle separating the rows of pews, trying to decipher which of the commands they were supposed to follow.
Harley and Tawny emerged from the back of the altar wearing white robes. The three commanders fell silent and Harley roared, “Sit, soldiers! On the double! Now! Now! Now!”
The twelve men scrambled to comply. They had grown impossibly fearful of Harley’s imposing voice. They were unaware that he was considered a pathetic fool by his own father and sister. With the two of them gone, he could pretend to be the man he’d always wanted to be. His other siblings would fall in line because they were considered more pathetic than Harley.
The exhausted recruits were berated into finding seats by Harley’s three senior officers. Once their backsides hit the bench and their mournful groans ceased, Harley raised his hands and struck a Jesus-on-the-cross pose.
“They, gentlemen. They. Say the word.”
The men looked at one another for guidance.
“Say the word, gentlemen! They!”
The men barked out in unison, “They!”
“They are everywhere! They control the media! They control the purse strings! They control our liv
es! They control the highways, the waterways, the airways!” He paused to the let his echo finish its dance. “Say it! They!”
The men again barked out, “They!”
“They are the enemy, and they are more powerful than us. They’ve got endless piles of our money to build their armies. They are godless. They are heartless. They are greed. They are tyranny! They!”
The men shouted with more enthusiasm, “They!”
“You, gentlemen, are the country’s last hope. We have put you through hell because you’ve got to know how to wrestle with the devil in order to tear that motherfucker apart! They!”
“They!”
“We! We have something they don’t have! We have purpose! We are righteous! This is God’s country, and we are his soldiers! We!”
“We!”
The front door to the church burst open, and a couple dozen more men dressed in gray military-style uniforms hustled inside carrying crates to the altar.
Harley waited for the last crate to be placed at the foot of the altar before continuing. “Gentlemen, this is your day, the day you become we. The day you are not just soldiers. You are the Gray Rise.”
The uniformed soldiers barked out, “Gray Rise!”
“The Gray Rise will not fall, gentlemen. We will not lose this war. We have more than God’s word on our side.” He stepped off of the altar and removed the lid of one of the crates, revealing a cache of military-grade rifles. He extracted one and held it high over his head. “We have God’s sword! We have his greatest weapon! We have chaos!”
The entire church erupted into a chant. “Gray Rise! Gray Rise! Gray Rise! Gray Rise!”
Harley raised a hand to quiet them. “Pastor General Tawny will issue, by God’s blessing, each man his weapon. Understand what that means, gentlemen. You are receiving a rifle anointed by God for the purpose of once again bestowing greatness on this country. A special firearm. No other individual, group, or army has access to such a gun. This weapon will never leave your side. It is your heart. It is your soul. It is your child. Better you die than to ever leave your weapon behind. You will worship your weapon! Understood?”
Savage Rising Page 4
